Anna K. Gillespie, Ph.D.
2023-11-28 11:00 - 12:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
Join the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (CNLM) for a hybrid event featuring Dr. Anna Gillespie, assistant professor of biological structure and lab medicine and pathology at University of Washington. This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.
Steps toward exploring the therapeutic potential of hippocampal replay

Description:
Executing memory-guided behavior requires storage of information about experience and later recall of that information to inform choices. Hippocampal sharp-wave ripple (SWR) events are associated with the time-compressed “replay” of representations of past experience, and multiple correlative and causal studies have demonstrated that SWRs critically contribute to these cognitive functions. Consistent with its role in memory processes, changes in SWRs have been reported concurrent with memory impairment in several rodent models of Alzheimer’s disease. Rescuing replay in Alzheimer’s could thus improve memory symptoms; however, our current options for promoting physiologically relevant replay are quite limited. To address this gap, we developed a neurofeedback paradigm for rats in which the real-time detection of SWRs triggers the delivery of positive reinforcement (food reward). In young adult animals, this training protocol increased the prevalence of task-relevant replay during the targeted neurofeedback period by changing the temporal dynamics of SWR occurrence, and was also associated with neural and behavioral forms of compensation after the targeted period. This work demonstrates that subjects can learn to use neurofeedback to modulate physiologically relevant patterns of hippocampal network activity and lays the foundation for future work in subjects with compromised replay, such as rodent models of Alzheimer’s disease.

Elizabeth Buffalo, Ph.D.
2024-02-06 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
Join the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (CNLM) for a hybrid event featuring Dr. Elizabeth A. Buffalo, professor and chair of physiology and biophysics at the University of Washington. This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.
Neural Dynamics of Memory Formation in the Primate Hippocampus

Description:
Our understanding of the hippocampus has been framed by two landmark discoveries: the discovery by Scoville and Millner that hippocampal damage causes profound and persistent amnesia and the discovery by O’Keefe and Dostrovsky of hippocampal place cells in rodents. However, it has been unclear to what extent spatial representations are present in the primate brain and how to reconcile these representations with the known mnemonic function of this region. I will discuss a series of experiments that have examined neural activity in the hippocampus in monkeys performing behavioral tasks including foraging and spatial memory tasks in a virtual environment. These data demonstrate that behavioral task structure has a significant influence on hippocampal activity, with neurons responding to all salient events within the task. Taken together, these data are consistent with the idea that activity in the hippocampus tracks ongoing experience in support of memory formation.

J. David Jentsch, Ph.D.
2024-03-05 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
Join the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (CNLM) for a hybrid event featuring Dr. J. David Jentsch, Distinguished Professor and Chair of Psychology at Binghamton University. This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.
Diversity to the rescue: Identifying novel molecular regulators of addiction liability

Christian Bravo Rivera, Ph.D.
2024-03-12 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
Join the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (CNLM) for a hybrid event featuring Dr. Christian Bravo Rivera, assistant professor of psychiatry, anatomy, and neurobiology. This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.
Neural circuits mediating reward approach and punishment avoidance conflict
Reward is often present in risky environments, requiring individuals to weigh the benefits of rewards against the associated risks. There are individuals that are unable to choose an appropriate response during risky reward opportunities and thus exhibit extreme avoidance or risky behaviors that can severely impair quality of life or endanger people. It is therefore necessary to characterize how neurons mediate reward approach and threat avoidance conflict. Here, we adapted the platform-mediated avoidance conflict task (Bravo-Rivera et al 2014; Bravo-Rivera et al 2021), such that water-deprived mice could nose-poke for a light-signaled water reward and avoid a tone-signaled foot-shock by stepping onto a safety platform away from the reward port. Optogenetic activation of GABAergic neurons in the ventral pallidum invigorated reward approach at the expense of receiving shocks. Photometry recordings of glutamatergic neurons in the ventral pallidum and in the lateral habenula during conflict revealed that these structures promote avoidance and become inhibited during conflicted reward approach. These results suggest that a pallidal-habenula circuit mediates motivational conflict. We also compared behavioral conflict in male and female mice. Interestingly, females stepped on the platform earlier than males after tone onset and took longer to leave the platform after tone offset. Males received more shocks than females and received more water reward than females by the end conflict training. Moreover, females exhibited more tone-induced freezing and exhibited more frequent darting than males. These results suggest that females exhibit more avoidance behavior and less reward approach than males in the face of approach/avoidance conflict.

Nanthia Suthana, Ph.D.
2024-04-09 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
Join the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (CNLM) for a hybrid event featuring Dr. Nanthia Suthana, associate professor-in-residence at the University of California, Los Angeles. This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.
Unraveling Memories on the Go: Insights from Mobile Intracranial EEG Recordings in Humans

Description:
Recent technology enables the study of deep brain activity during memory phenomena in ambulatory humans navigating through real or virtual environments. Through these methods, we have shown dynamic modulation of hippocampal, entorhinal, and amygdala activity by factors like movement speed, eye movements, emotional valence and memory success. This presentation will provide an overview of these findings and explore potential clinical applications, particularly in treating neuropsychiatric disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder.

Semir Zeki, FMedSci, FRS
2024-04-16 11:00 - 12:30 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
CNLM Colloquium Series
Join the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (CNLM) for an online event featuring Dr. Semir Zeki, professor of neuroaesthetics at University College London. This event will be held virtually via Zoom.
The science of beauty

The experience of beauty is something that we all seek and are prepared to expend considerable energy and much money in trying to acquire. But what does it entail neurobiologically? If it is a subjective experience, can it ever be measured? Are there, or can there be, any set of characteristics that render objects beautiful, irrespective of culture and upbringing?
I will address these questions from a neurobiological perspective. I will show that there cannot be a single characteristic or a single set of characteristics that can render any and every object beautiful because of the way in which our brains are organized to perceive the world. I will also show that there are, in the perception of different attributes such as visual motion, faces and bodies, criteria which are not culture or education bound which can be said to enhance their beauty and to be critical to the experience of beauty when viewing them. Finally, I will show that all works that are experienced as beautiful, regardless of source (i.e. whether visual or musical or highly cognitive – as with mathematical beauty), have, as a correlate, activity in a specific part of the reward system of the emotional brain, although the neural route used to reach that part of the brain varies, depending on what is perceived. The intensity of activity there bears a quantitative relationship to the declared intensity of the experience of beauty, thus enabling us to detect and quantify the neural correlates of a subjective experience.

Laura Colgin, Ph.D.
2024-04-23 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
Join the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (CNLM) for a hybrid event featuring Dr. Laura Colgin, professor of neuroscience at the University of Texas at Austin. This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.
Hippocampal place cell responses to spatial and non-spatial information

Description:
The hippocampus is a key brain network for episodic memory. Place cells are neurons in the hippocampus that fire in specific spatial locations known as place fields. This spatially selective firing is thought to code the “where” component of episodic memory. Yet, episodic memories contain nonspatial information also. This talk will present results showing how different populations of hippocampal place cells respond to nonspatial aspects of an experience, such as social stimuli or motivational context. The results may help explain how the hippocampus integrates different aspects of an experience into a coherent episodic memory.

Chioma Okeoma, Ph.D.
2024-04-30 11:00 - 12:00 | Zoom
Join the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (CNLM) for a virtual event featuring Dr. Chioma Okeoma, associate professor of pathology, microbiology, and immunology at the New York Medical College. This event will be held virtually via Zoom.
Extracellular condensates – do we have to worry about them?

Daeyeol Lee, Ph.D.
2024-05-07 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
Join the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (CNLM) for a hybrid event featuring Dr. Daeyeol Lee, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of neuroscience, psychological and brain sciences at Johns Hopkins University. This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.
Playing Games in the Brain

Description:
Social animals face the challenging task of predicting the actions of others. Game theory formalizes the decision making in social settings, and reinforcement learning theories can be applied to understand the cognitive processes involved in iterative social interactions. In this talk, I will review the neural correlates of such iterative learning in primate prefrontal cortex during simple competitive games, such as the rock-paper-scissors, as well as a more cognitively complex board game, such as the 4-in-a-row. The results from these experiments demonstrate the advantage of formal games in deciphering the neurocomputational mechanisms of decision making and planning.

2024 CNLM Award Ceremony
2024-05-09 11:00 - 14:00 | Irvine Improv, 527 Spectrum Center Dr, Irvine, 92618, United States
Join the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (CNLM) for the 2024 CNLM Awards Ceremony.
The CNLM offers awards to exceptional postdoctoral researchers, graduate trainees, undergraduates students, faculty, and alumni. Student and trainee awardees will be invited to present their work in brief Elevator Pitch format to the UCI academic community and the public at our annual CNLM Awards Ceremony.

For more information, please visit: https://cnlm.uci.edu/awards/

Brad Postle, Ph.D.
2024-05-21 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
Join the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (CNLM) for a hybrid event featuring Dr. Brad Postle, professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.
Controlling the Contents of Visual Working Memory

Description:
Two hallmarks of working memory are flexibility — ability to mentally juggle multiple pieces of information, prioritizing what’s relevant for the task immediately at hand while also keeping potentially important but currently unprioritized information in an accessible state — and updateability — allowing for the rapid replacement of the no-longer-needed with the newly relevant. This talk will explore these two aspects of the control of working memory at the levels of algorithmic operation and neural implementation. Specifically, although parsimony holds that “deprioritization” and “removal” might be accomplished via the same mechanism, I will draw on neuroimaging (EEG and fMRI), computational (RNN, RL), and behavioral data to argue for two distinct, novel, processes for controlling the contents of WM: the transformation of representational geometries as a function of priority; and the top-down hijacking of mechanisms of adaptation to accomplish active removal. This work may generalize to broader questions, such as of how we control the moment-to-moment contents of conscious awareness, and how we diagnose and treat disorders of thought.

Catherine Hartley, Ph.D.
2024-06-18 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
Join us for a hybrid event featuring Dr. Catherine Hartley, Associate Professor of Psychology at New York University. This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.
Event is jointly sponsored with the Conte Center@UCI.
Interactive development of reinforcement learning and episodic memory

Highlighting the fundamentally interactive nature of learning and memory, recent studies in adults have demonstrated that the same quantitative learning signals that inform value computation during reinforcement learning also modulate how information is prioritized and represented in episodic memory. While both reinforcement learning and episodic memory processes exhibit qualitative shifts from childhood to adulthood, how the interactions between these neurocognitive systems might change over development remains virtually unexplored. In this talk, I will present studies that leverage computational modeling to characterize age-related shifts in how reinforcement learning computations influence the content and granularity of memory, and how memory, in turn, informs value-based choices. I will discuss how these processes may support adaptive behavior at different developmental stages.

Lisa Feldman Barrett, Ph.D.
2024-10-16 19:30 - 20:30 | Irvine Barclay Theatre
The McGaugh-Gerard Lecture on Learning and Memory will host guest speaker Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett, University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University.
Three Lessons About the Brain
Ever wonder how your brain really works? Join us for the 3rd Annual McGaugh-Gerard Lecture on Learning and Memory by Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett, an author and expert in psychology and neuroscience, as she breaks down three key ideas about the brain’s inner workings. In this talk, you’ll learn:

How your brain’s most important job is keeping your body running smoothly.
How your brain is constantly predicting what will happen next rather than reacting to the world.
How feeling and thinking and even seeing follow from your brain’s plan for action; your brain prepares your behavior first and creates your lived experience in the process.

Dr. Barrett will show how these brain functions affect how you feel, how you think, and what you do.

Marcus Holmes, Ph.D.
2024-10-22 16:00 - 17:00 | Herklotz Conference Center and Virtually via Zoom, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, 92697-3800, United States
UCI Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, UCI Brain, and UCI Conte Center will host guest speaker Dr. Marcus Holmes, Professor of Government, Chair of the Department of Government, Director of the Political Psychology and International Relations Lab, and Co-Director of the Social Science Research Methods Center from The College of William and Mary.
The Social Neuroscience Behind Face-to-Face Diplomacy?

Manuella Oliveira Yassa, Ph.D. & Caroline Montojo, Ph.D.
2024-10-30 12:00 | Virtual
The Center for the Neurobiology of Learning & Memory (CNLM) will host guest speakers Dr. Manuella Oliveira Yassa, Director of Outreach and Education at the CNLM, and Dr. Caroline Montojo, President & CEO of the Dana Foundation.
Join us to learn more about the CONNECT series. This session will include an opportunity to network.

Jeffrey Krichmar, Ph.D.
2024-11-05 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center and Virtually via Zoom, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, 92697-3800, United States
Join the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (CNLM) for a hybrid event featuring Dr. Jeffrey Krichmar, Professor of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California, Irvine.
This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.

Biologically inspired robot navigation
We take inspiration from recent neurophysiological findings to create a flexible navigation system for mobile robots. In the first part of my talk, I will present a neuromorphic path planning algorithm inspired by place cell behavior and experience-dependent plasticity. Our navigation system utilizes a spiking neural network wavefront planner and E-prop learning to concurrently map and plan paths in large, complex environments. We incorporate a novel method for mapping which, when combined with the spiking wavefront planner, allows for adaptive planning by selectively considering combining costs. The learning is continuous and does not require retraining due to changes in the environment. The system is tested on a mobile robot platform in an outdoor environment with obstacles and varying terrain. On real and simulated paths, our system outperforms state-of-the-art robot path planners. The spiking wavefront planner is compatible with neuromorphic hardware and could be used for applications requiring low size weight and power. In the second part of my talk, I will discuss how we seamlessly move between global perspectives and first-person perspectives and why this is important for navigation, memory formation, and other cognitive tasks. To understand how a neural system might carry out these computations, we used variational autoencoders (VAEs) to reconstruct first-person perspectives from global map perspectives, and vice versa. Many latent variables in our model had similar responses to those seen in neuron recordings, including place cells, head direction tuning, and encoding distance to objects. These results could advance our understanding of how brain regions support viewpoint linkages and transformations. Currently, we are combining these two modeling approaches into a unified biologically inspired navigation system that can handle dynamic environments.

J. Zoe Klemfuss, Ph.D.
2024-11-12 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center and Virtually via Zoom, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, 92697-3800, United States
Join the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (CNLM) for a hybrid event featuring Dr. J. Zoe Klemfuss, Associate Professor of Psychological Sciences at the University of California, Irvine.
This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.

Children’s memory reports in legal contexts
Millions of US children are centrally involved in legal investigations each year. They may be questioned as suspected victims or witnesses or in other impactful legal proceedings like custody determinations. As one chilling example, over 3 million children are the subjects of child protective services disposition due to suspected maltreatment annually. In some of the most heinous crimes against children such as child sexual abuse, children’s statements may be the only available evidence. These crimes rarely have other witnesses and because disclosure is routinely delayed, physical evidence is rare as well. My colleagues and I have been examining ways we can help children to give accurate and detailed memory reports of their legally-relevant experiences. In this talk, I will focus on how we’ve been considering child, interviewer, and contextual factors as we examine 1) children’s reports of event time and sequence and 2) interviewer-child rapport and support, and their implications for children’s legal statements.

Greg Gage, Ph.D.
2024-11-13 09:00 - 10:00 | Virtual
The Center for the Neurobiology of Learning & Memory (CNLM) will host guest speaker Dr. Greg Gage, CEO and Co-Founder of Backyard Brains, for their CONNECT Series.
Engaging Curiosity Through Hands-on Neuroscience
This talk will explore how to actively engage individuals in neuroscience before they fully grasp the underlying concepts, focusing on approaches to hands-on learning and community involvement. I will discuss Backyard Brains’ experience creating low-cost, open-source neuroscience tools that make neuroscience education accessible to students and the general public. Through live demonstrations and case studies, we’ll examine how these tools can spark curiosity, broaden participation, and support underrepresented groups in STEM, with a focus on fostering a hands-on approach before conceptual understanding is fully established.

Psychedelics Through the Lens of Science, Treatment, and Policy
2024-11-18 08:00 - 18:00 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
Please join UC Irvine’s Center for Addiction Neuroscience (UCI CAN) for an all-day symposium entitled: “Psychedelics Through the Lens of Science, Treatment, and Policy“, to be held on Monday November 18 at Herklotz Auditorium of the UCI Center for Neurobiology of Learning and Memory.
We will hear perspectives of academic researchers, psychiatrists, and policymakers from across North America, all discussing aspects of the recent resurgence of interest in psychedelic molecules, many of which have been known for millennia by indigenous cultures for their consciousness-altering and medicinal properties.
Join us for a wide-ranging discussion of psychedelic neuroscience, psychiatry, and policy with experts from: University of Calgary; UC Berkeley; UC Irvine; the National Institute on Drug Abuse; and the US Food & Drug Administration.
Pre-registration is required, it is free, and it comes with breakfast, lunch and reception, as well as brand new ICAN swag!
Capacity is limited for this in-person event, so don’t hesitate: REGISTER TODAY!
2024 Psychedelics Symposium Registration

Lunch and Learn: UCI Behavioral Testing Core Facility
2024-11-21 12:00 - 13:00 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
Shahrdad Lotfipour, PhD, and Michael A. Yassa, PhD will host a Lunch and Learn session about the new UC Irvine Behavioral Testing Core Facility. This session will introduce researchers to the capabilities of our new state-of-the-art facility with a range of equipment designed for rigorous and reproducible testing of rodent behavior. The facility is supported by the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory and services the entire UCI campus as well as outside investigators.
During this session, you will learn:

Equipment and behavioral testing services available.
Scheduling and rates for use of equipment and consultation services.
$5,000 seed grants opportunities for new facility users.

Lunch will be provided to registered attendees. Register early to secure your spot!

Anna Leshinskaya, Ph.D.
2024-12-10 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center and Virtually via Zoom, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, 92697-3800, United States
Join the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (CNLM) for a hybrid event featuring Dr. Anna Leshinskaya, Assistant Professor of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California, Irvine.
This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.
Processes of learning and integration to build relational memory in the human brain
The human brain naturally uses experience to infer how entities, attributes, and events relate to each other, abilities that are essential for both episodic and semantic memory. Yet, the learning and inference processes that allow the brain to build relational memory, across multiple neural circuits and time, remain poorly specified. In this talk, I will discuss two sets of findings using human fMRI and temporal relation learning. In the first, I use computational theories of learning as precise but competing hypotheses for how the brain uses noisy experiential data to infer the strength of relations among visual events and to build relational memory. Results reveal a surprising computational continuity between memory formation and the mechanisms of reinforcement learning and classical conditioning. Furthermore, neural and behavioral data jointly suggest that the brain supports multiple strategies simultaneously, and raises the further question of how strategies are selected. In the second finding, I shed light on how the brain integrates diverse experiences to build knowledge of shared relational structure, in both classically episodic and semantic brain areas across two time-points. I find that entorhinal cortex, in particular, plays a key role in rapid relational integration that complements the role of semantic areas in slower integrative processes. I will raise a number of open future questions regarding the neural mechanisms of relational memory.

Marguerite Matthews, Ph.D.
2024-12-11 09:00 - 10:00 | Virtual
The Center for the Neurobiology of Learning & Memory (CNLM) will host guest speaker Dr. Marguerite Matthews, Section Chief of Career Preparation in the Office of Programs to Enhance the Neuroscience Workforce, NINDS, for their CONNECT Series.
NINDS Strategies to Enhance the Diversity of the Neuroscience Workforce
This presentation will provide an overview of NINDS’s commitment to enhancing the diversity of the neuroscience workforce and cover specific funding opportunities aimed at supporting the science education and research training of individuals at the PreK-12, college, postbaccalaureate, and early-stage graduate school levels.

Carla Romney, Sc.D., MBA
2025-01-08 09:00 - 10:00 | Virtual
The Center for the Neurobiology of Learning & Memory (CNLM) will host guest speaker Carla Romney, Sc.D., MBA, Director of Research at Boston University, CityLab, and Associate Editor-Journal of STEM Outreach, for their CONNECT Series.
Sharing STEM educational outreach through publications and presentations
STEM educational outreach programs offer innovative programming for a wide variety of audiences, yet too often the best (and worst) practices are not shared with others. In addition, the evaluation of programs and assessment of their impacts on learners are often not distributed via public channels. This session will explore publishing and presenting findings from STEM educational outreach in order to enhance their dissemination and have them contribute to understanding what works, for whom, and under what circumstances.

Gyorgy Lur, Ph.D.
2025-01-21 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center and Virtually via Zoom, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, 92697-3800, United States
Join the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (CNLM) for a hybrid event featuring Dr. Gyorgy Lur, Associate Professor of Neurobiology and Behavior at the University of California, Irvine.
How stress reorganizes cognitive circuits in the parietal cortex
This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.

Michael A. Yassa, Ph.D
2025-02-04 19:30 - 20:30 | Irvine Barclay Theatre
Alzheimer’s disease impacts more than 6 million people in the United States alone. Join the UC Irvine Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory on February 4, 2025, for the 27th Distinguished Lecture on Brain, Learning, and Memory, presented by Dr. Michael Yassa. His lecture, titled “The Beginning of the End for Alzheimer’s Disease,” will delve into groundbreaking research and future directions in the fight against this devastating condition.
In this program, you will discover:

The latest advances in Alzheimer’s disease research
Strategies to protect and maintain a healthy brain as we age
Emerging treatments offering hope for those affected by Alzheimer’s

Dr. Michael Yassa is a Neuroscience Professor and the James L. McGaugh Endowed Chair in the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory at the University of California, Irvine. Since 2016, he has served as the director of UCI’s world-renowned Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory.

Shahrdad Lotfipour, Ph.D.
2025-02-11 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center and Virtually via Zoom, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, 92697-3800, United States
Join the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (CNLM) for a hybrid event featuring Dr. Shahrdad Lotfipour, Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of California, Irvine.
Molecular neurobiology of adolescent nicotine use
Adolescence is a critical period for brain development, particularly in systems underlying reward and addiction. My lab’s research focuses on understanding how genetic and environmental factors interact to influence adolescent nicotine use, co-morbid substance abuse, and relapse. Using innovative CRISPR-Cas9-generated rodent models mimicking human genetic variants, we investigate the molecular, neurochemical, and behavioral mechanisms driving nicotine’s effects on reward and relapse. This talk will highlight key findings on the sex- and genotype-dependent influences of the CHRNA6 3′-UTR SNP on dopamine and norepinephrine systems, behavioral outcomes in nicotine and methamphetamine co-use, and nicotine-seeking behavior. These insights provide a framework for exploring targeted therapeutic strategies for adolescent substance use.
This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.

Kristin Bass, Ph.D.
2025-02-19 09:00 - 10:00 | Virtual
The Center for the Neurobiology of Learning & Memory (CNLM) will host guest speaker Dr. Kristin Bass, Director of Research Development at Rockman et. al Cooperative, SciEd Organizer, and Co-Editor-Journal of STEM Outreach, for their CONNECT Series.
Evaluating Outreach Programs with Meaningful Data
How do you know your outreach programs are making a difference? How can you make your programs better? In this seminar we’ll discuss how to design, collect, and use evaluation data to develop impactful outreach programs and share that impact with others in your community. I’ll present a general, step-by-step evaluation process along with some tips and tricks. Questions will be welcomed and encouraged!

Ulises Ricoy, Ph.D.
2025-03-12 09:00 - 10:00 | Virtual
The Center for the Neurobiology of Learning & Memory (CNLM) will host guest speaker Dr. Ulises Ricoy, Director of Outreach Initiatives and Grass Foundation Associate Research Scientist from the University of Arizona, for their CONNECT Series.

Momoko Watanabe, Ph.D.
2025-03-25 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center and Virtually via Zoom, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, 92697-3800, United States
Join the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (CNLM) for a hybrid event featuring Dr. Momoko Watanabe, Assistant Professor of Anatomy and Neurobiology at the University of California, Irvine.
This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.
Self-organization of polarized cortical organoids upon the formation of anterior and posterior organizers for disease modeling

Cortical organoids derived from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) have emerged as an accessible and invaluable tool to study human neurodevelopment and disease. Cortical organoids consistently self-organize into the laminar architecture of the human cortex dorsoventrally. However, they currently still lack a controlled induction in the anteroposterior axis. Here, we demonstrate the polarization of cortical organoids. Many neurodevelopmental disorders have specific dysregulation in different regions within the cortex. Thus, the demonstration of the anteroposterior polarization would serve as a powerful platform to study various neurological disorders that have differential effects on cortical regions.

Lulu Y. Chen, Ph.D.
2025-04-08 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center and Virtually via Zoom, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, 92697-3800, United States
Join the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (CNLM) for a hybrid event featuring Dr. Lulu Y. Chen, Associate Professor of Anatomy and Neurobiology at the University of California, Irvine.
This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.
